Sonar 5 has arrived...

[Ixox]

I think the convo reverb is what happened to Pristine Space Light.

I think so...

Voxengo product on cakewalk web site
http://cakewalk.com/Products/Voxengo/default.asp


Congrats Aleksey !!!

[AD80]

Wow. Cakewalk is hookin up with all the best PC devs out there .

[Forever Sun]

Wow. Cakewalk is hookin up with all the best PC devs out there .

Yeah, they seem to be snapping up the cool, independent developers. However, Steinberg has been snapped by Yamaha, Emagic by Apple, but nobody wants Cakewalk , only kidding. They in turn, keep snapping the cool little guys ,Ultrafunk, RGC Audio, Voxengo...Wonder what will come of it. The companies Cakewalk has incorporated into Sonar have always provided products that I needed, at the right time. Congrats to Cake for smart moves.

[lanfear]

Ah, quite an understatement. While it *is* extremely useful, Sonar apparently continues to incrementally creep towards what seems to be an inevitable demise: death by bloating.

Paul White's leader in the September issue of SOS is about this subject and well worth reading. Simple software IS a goal worth pursuing, but it does inevitably get more complicated if you need access to more professional tools.

lf

[jens]

Wow. Cakewalk is hookin up with all the best PC devs out there .

Yeah, they seem to be snapping up the cool, independent developers. However, Steinberg has been snapped by Yamaha, Emagic by Apple, but nobody wants Cakewalk

huh??? - they teamed up with Roland long ago!!!

[bmanic]

Am I the only one thinking that Cakewalk needs to get rid of that hobby GUI designer? I mean, can you say cluttered very confusing GUI? IMHO it looks horrible.

I really don't understand how anybody can work with that channel view (all that stuff left of the tracks). It looks like a total mess.

Featurewise and company wise cakewalk seem to be the smartest out there but man.. they really need totally new graphics.

- bManic

[Forever Sun]

Wow. Cakewalk is hookin up with all the best PC devs out there .

Yeah, they seem to be snapping up the cool, independent developers. However, Steinberg has been snapped by Yamaha, Emagic by Apple, but nobody wants Cakewalk

huh??? - they teamed up with Roland long ago!!!

You're right ! Sorry !
I shouldn't have drunk that Ale last night.

[jens]

Am I the only one thinking that Cakewalk needs to get rid of that hobby GUI designer? I mean, can you say cluttered very confusing GUI? IMHO it looks horrible.

I really don't understand how anybody can work with that channel view (all that stuff left of the tracks). It looks like a total mess.

Featurewise and company wise cakewalk seem to be the smartest out there but man.. they really need totally new graphics.

- bManic

I completely agree - Imo Sonar still looks horrible!

[bmanic]

Well, after reading trough the news about sonar 5 I have to say that this is probably one of the biggest releases so far!

Man, they copied samplitude and introduced clip based effects! That is, object oriented thinking! Hurray!

Now if I only could get a nice clean simple gui with all the 'garbage' tucked away somewhere. It is skinnable, right?

- bManic

[Sascha Franck]

Paul White's leader in the September issue of SOS is about this subject and well worth reading. Simple software IS a goal worth pursuing, but it does inevitably get more complicated if you need access to more professional tools.

See, it's a matter of modularity. That's why I love Logic so much.
My arrange is absolutely clean, there's barely anything but a nice, large arrange, a channelstrip (or a full sized mixer, on the dual monitor setup) to select VSTs and audio inputs from and a parameter box to display a parts delay and quantizing settings from. That's just about it. Really. It's a GREAT deal less cluttered than say, SX' project window with an opened inspector, but still providing all necessary information very fast.

I can make it as complex as I want, with folder substructures, all context catched, so they're following each other. I can bring up float windows, showing me greater details. I can bring up all sorts of funny windows. And I can blend in automation.
But, in a normal working situation I just don't need ANY of all these. I do switch to my MIDI editing screenset occasionally, but that's about it during the compositional stage.

As said, all those deeper functionalities *need* to be hidden IMO. And at the same time there needs to be an option to bring them up very fast, should you finally have to use them.

Another example: When I setup a multiout Battery instance in SX, the mixer will confront me with 16 new channels instantly. Even if I just don't even need them (at least not for now). I need to click EACH of those channels to hide them. Doesn't take a lifetime, but enough to allready distract me from inspiration.
In Logic I only have to setup those individual outs whenever I really need them. I certainly don't need them to mess up my workspace while composing and arranging. Yes, getting individual outs ready *does* take a tad longer. But at the stage when I finally need them, time is no critical issue as I don't need to worry about my inspiration getting lost anymore.

This is what most host companies apparently are getting wrong very often.
They are presenting you a SHITLOAD of information, buttons, popups and whatever, just when you really don't need them at all. All you want to do is to select some insrument (or audio source), arm a track and record away. After that you most likely want to move and copy tracks around, quantize them and probably add some quick n dirty FX. Oh, and you want to change levels and pannings quickly.
These are the things that have to be done in the most efficient way, without ANY clutter disturbing you, even if usually this would *only* be visual clutter. I don't need to see envelope, automation, clip editing or whatever things at that stage, NOT AT ALL.
It doesn't even exactly matter whether it takes a second or two more to get me to those more advanced features, because - as allready said - these are things I need during editing and mixing, a stage at which time shouldn't matter all that much anymore.

Btw, on the VSTi side of things, this is one of the reasons I like NIs FM7 quite a lot. It's got that brilliant easy edit page. Usually that's all I need to make a patch suit my song.
When contructing patches, sure, I REALLY want to go into the details (and, as most of you may know, FM7 offers a great deal of them). But whenever I just need a pad, find something great but do think like "hm, it could just be a tad brighter and have a bit faster attack", I'm just happily entering the easy edit page, and instead of fooling with a multitude of multiple breakpoint envelopes I'm done in a matter of seconds.

The same should apply for sequencers.

[jens]

I shouldn't have drunk that Ale last night.

no problem at all bud...

[Sascha Franck]

Featurewise and company wise cakewalk seem to be the smartest out there but man.. they really need totally new graphics.

100% agreed.
But, almost the same might be true for Steinberg.

[whyterabbyt]

And the results so far:

25% of the audience : Looks good, glad they added feature X
25% of the audience : Dammit where's feature Y
25% of the audience : Frig it, its just bloatware now
25% of the audience : I bet they start using a dongle, copying all the trends and torturing fluffy ickle animals. So Cakewalk are bastards and Im not buying this even although I dont own it anyways.

[headquest]

Am I the only one thinking that Cakewalk needs to get rid of that hobby GUI designer? I mean, can you say cluttered very confusing GUI? IMHO it looks horrible.

I really don't understand how anybody can work with that channel view (all that stuff left of the tracks). It looks like a total mess.

Featurewise and company wise cakewalk seem to be the smartest out there but man.. they really need totally new graphics.

- bManic

I must admit I agree. The features in Sonar 5 do look very nice - even tempting. I've considered going down the Sonar route in the past, and seeing some of the features here - native VST, the convo reverb, inline editing, tabbed views... - I'm tempted again.

BUT

Of all the big sequencers this now has to be the ugliest by far.. the most obviously cluttered... and yes, the word "bloatware" really does shoot out to me.

I too read Paul Whilte's leader (always do) and I take the points he makes. But I think there has to be a happier medium between full-on functions and GUI design/workflow. The program that gets the balance perfectly right is going to win the current host war that is going on. Sonar may be lagging here...

I also think that of the "big 3", Sonar is currently the most under threat from the likes of Traktion and Ableton. Logic has a commanding pro user base and is the natural choice for all mac owners. Cubase is cross platform, very capable, has a huge following, is used in schools everywhere, and can be upgraded to Nuendo.

Sonar has not made the same impact here in the UK, and seems still to offer little that is really unique. In fact its best features appear to be those added by the independant developers they buy out, rather than their own in-house stuff . I think the big selling point now is that it's *ahem* cheaper.

[whyterabbyt]

<EDIT> S'okay I found it.